Qualitative Research and Ethics

For the past couple of weeks our class focused on qualitative research. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative research is not searching for numbers or statistics. This type of research is, instead, used to gain insight into people's attitudes and behaviors.

In relation to the focus of my blog, ethics, there are some aspects of qualitative research that some might argue pushes the boundaries of honoring those ethics. In previous blogs I had talked about how some focus groups can violate research ethics due to lack of information given to the participants. In another blog I addressed some ethical dilemmas that unobtrustive research holds. This blog will focus on if or if not giving incentives for participating in a focus group is ethical.

As stated, the purpose of qualitative research is to understand people's attitudes and behaviors. With that said, if a company conducts a focus group about a new product they are launching wouldn't giving an incentive alter the participants attitudes and behaviors towards that product? It could almost be looked at as a bribe- and as we know bribes are unethical.

Lets take a look at the example we had in class last week, the King of the Hill youtube clip. The moderator almost used the $50 as a way to not only get participants to come but also to make them favor the product when it was clear that the majority of the volunteers did not care to be there or about the product, just the money.

Now, I am not saying that giving incentives is completely unethical. In fact, in some cases I think it is necessary. For instance, if a company is trying to research the minds of college kids, more likely than not they will get more respondents if they offer an incentive. However, if the incentive is used as a way to get people to favor a product or an idea then there are ethics that have been violated.

Classmates' Unobtrusive Research Blogs

Last week we were assigned to create a blog about unobtrusive research. For me, unobtrusive research has been one of the most interesting subjects we have learned this semester so far. It gives researchers a chance to play the detective they always admire on Law and Order- a change to investigate the "crime" scene and solve the "mystery" (answer research questions).

What I found even more interesting was reading my classmates blogs about my favorite topic. Since my blog focuses on ethics, last week I discussed the debate of whether conducting unobtrusive research was unethical or not. So it was exciting to see how unobtrusive research was discussed using other topics.

The first blog that I want to comment on is Devon's Blog. In this blog Devon talked about how unobtrusive research is relevant to social media via celebrity Twitter updates. Social media is a tool that can be used to market a product, create relationships with customers, and more. However, I never thought of it as a tool to conduct research. Devon's blog was a perfect example of how social media can be used to conduct unobtrusive research and it opened my eyes to the possibilities this type of research has.

The second blog I want to comment on is Kevin's Blog. Kevin's blog focused on how unobtrusive is relevant to fitness and the supplement industry. It was useful to see how a specific industry would use this type of research. In his blog, Kevin discussed how the fitness and supplement industry uses both social media and different stores as outlets to perform unobtrusive research.

Discussing unobtrusive research through an ethical standpoint and reading my classmates blogs who discussed the topic in a different way helped me gain a much better understanding of this type of research.

Unobtrusive Research and Ethics

This week we learned about unobtrusive research. In this type of research the subjects do not know anyone is watching them. According to the guidelines of ethics in research there must be a voluntary participation. So one could conclude that unobtrusive research is unethical right?

Although unobtrusive research might not follow one of the guidelines to ethics in research that does not necessarily make unobtrusive research as a whole unethical. For instance, when performing the assignment this week we had to figure out which door to the School of Communications was used most. One of the ways I figured it out was observing people as they walked in an out of the doors. I was hidden and the subjects did not see me nor know that they were being watched. Some might argue that performing that research was unethical because the subjects were unaware hence an invasion of privacy but I do not think most of the people would mind being part of a study of opening up a door therefore I do not feel I violated any type of ethics.

However, there are some cases in which I feel the ethical boundary is pushed a little. Studies that are done to research a sensitive subject like racism and there is a hidden camera recording people about how they feel about the issue might be crossing the line of ethics. Unlike the door study the participants might not be fully OK with them being secretly taped for a study on racism.

So I do not think unobtrusive research is unethical but there is a fine line and when it is crossed there is a  violation of ethics in research. But, what is the alternative? If researchers need to know how people feel about racism, is there another way to find out an accurate answer not using unobtrusive research?